Summer Happenings

I promised Dr. Duncan that I would post over the summer, so here is my first blog of the summer! May is just about over, and I am almost halfway done with my summer class. I LOVE having one class for four days a week. I am taking my science in society course which is required for Gen Ed.

Let's see . . . In the past few weeks, I have received 2 awards at school. I received part of the Anne C. Dahle Scholarship, and I received an English Leadership Fund award. I had no idea I was going to get an award for the English dept! I feel very blessed to have gotten these awards.

As for my kids, I made 3 doctor visits within 3 weeks. My 15-year- old daughter had female issues. My 9-year-old son had the flu - NOT the swine flu. My 12-year-old son had developed eczema. I do not want to go back to the doctor for awhile. I believe I have seen the office enough.

Not only am I taking a summer class, but I am also doing summer research. Things have been moving along, and I am learning so much more than I ever thought I would.

I am done for now. I will post again later. I hope everyone is having a great summer break!

Final Post for the Semester

Let me start by saying how much I am going to miss this class. I have enjoyed getting to know all the ladies in my class and have enjoyed sharing many things with you all.
As far as the blogging idea, I may try to continue to post to my blog. I am in the process of forcing myself to do this because I think it really may help me. It may be easier for me to simply write whatever I am thinking versus having to respond about something from class or readings. No offense, Dr. Duncan! Let's see how this works out during the summer. Hopefully I will still be blogging in the fall.
I believe every student in my class will be a great teacher and I look forward to hearing about your adventures in teaching. Hey...I think I just came up with a new name for my blog: Adventures in Teaching, or Becky's Adventures in Teaching!
Thanks to the entire class and Dr. Duncan for the past semester. Please keep in touch.

Response to class

First, I must say that Freedom Writers is my favorite movie! Every time I watch this movie, I go through so many emotions ranging from anger to sadness to fear to comfort. Before I saw this film, I read Jonathan Kozol’s book, Shame of the Nation. I was so disgusted by the descriptions of the physical school environments and the lack of resources in the lower-income schools in New York. I was appalled when I read how a young black female felt that if the students, including her, died, they would not be missed. The overall feeling among these young kids was that they don’t really matter or even exist. Because I was reading this for my Foundations class, I immediately ran to my computer and wrote a personal letter to Dr. McKinney. I poured my heart out to her about how I wanted to do something, but I never knew what to do. I still feel helpless because I simply have not done anything.

Although I do not know where I will teach once I graduate, I do know I want to teach in a lower-income area school. I am so passionate about all kids feeling as if they are very valuable in this world. My classroom will be inviting, comfortable, safe, and every student will learn he/she is worthy of living and learning.

As for the "magic talk" idea, I LOVE it! I will definitely use this active learning strategy in my future classroom.

Listening

Listening is a very important language arts skill. As future teachers, we must model active listening to our students. As stated in our textbook, Language Arts: Patterns of Practice, Gail Tompkins (2009) provides strategies for teachers to help all students benefit from listening. One idea that I really liked was reading aloud and then pausing to “ask students to identify the idea[s] being presented” (Tompkins, 2009, 225). While students are responding, “teachers list […] responses on the chalkboard,” which helps visual learners too (Tompkins, 2009, 225). I believe so much can be conveyed or understood through listening. For instance, listening to Dr. Duncan read Sahara Special in class is so much fun to me. I love to hear the inflection in her voice as she reads the different characters. When a student reads the same book to herself, who is to say that the same context will be conveyed?

Propaganda is a huge topic. I love those days when my kids decide to turn the television off and listen to the silence. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, I am amazed at how much fun we all have. Turning off the TV and the radio means there are no commercials or advertisements being thrown at my family. I understand that these ads help pay for the music we hear or the shows we watch, but I feel it is crazy by how these ads can influence most people. For instance, my nine-year-old son, Kieran, can watch something on TV and he would call me to come see a specific commercial. He would say “Hey mommy. We need to get that OxyClean or the Wonder Putty!” The amount of commercials Kieran saw seemed to increase over time, and I figured that I needed to break the news to him: we cannot always believe what we see on TV. Kieran even had to purchase the infamous Floam and the Blendi-Pens, with his own birthday money, only to later find out this stuff was useless.

Free Post on School Visits

My field experiences have been great! Because I have been observing/participating in my cooperating teacher’s room, I have been able to establish a better relationship for when I take over her class in the fall for student teaching. (FYI-I am in a 6^th grade Language Arts classroom.)

I do not have one favorite visit. I LOVE all of my visits. I LOVE going into the school environment. I LOVE walking into the Sixth Grade Building and seeing all the students. I am sure my overwhelming excitement shows through to the students.

I am learning new ways to deal with middle school students on a daily basis. Although I do not agree with all of the teaching techniques my teacher uses, I am gaining a different perspective as to why she does certain things. This learning experience is very necessary on the road to helping me become a great teacher in the future.

Please Help Me!

I am trying to make my picture appear when I follow other blogs from class. I posted an image on my blog, but this same image does NOT appear when follow. I have tried every little setting thing on this dang blog with no luck!

Reflection 03/29/09

I wonder if what I want would be a mixture between Literature Focus and Thematic Unit? I want to have an overall theme, but I also want to read books that the whole class can discuss. How about I choose several different novels that fall under a broad topic so students can choose between the options I give them? This allows for student choice in reading groups, yet all of the books are focusing on a specific theme or author.

For example, I could choose Christopher Paul Curtis as the author. I could also choose several books connected to an overall theme such as historical fiction around a specific time period, maybe even what they may be studying in Social Studies.

Sharon Draper books, maybe? The book Holes, and others from the same author? There are so many possibilities on this topic. I really don’t know which to choose from. Because I have only started reading YA novels, (since EDU-255), I do not have a lot of knowledge of which books are appropriate to teach or if these book have been very successful in the classroom before. I know that even though I would love to do Literature Focus, I don’t believe that this option allows the students much room to decide what the class reads.

As for activities, I guess I need to decide on a topic/book first. Since I have been observing in my cooperating teacher’s class, I have been taking notes on the different novels the students read. I hope that through this class, among my other classes, I will become more schooled in the novels middle school students would benefit from reading in my own classroom.

Reflection 03/15/09

Yay for Free Blog!!!! Just kidding. I actually like having guiding questions. I always have trouble just free writing. Okay, so . . . hmmmm. I did enjoy spring break. Even though the snow kept all three kids home on Monday, I enjoyed my break. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely love my kids. I was really looking forward to some quiet time. Anyway. I did observe at West Millbrook Middle several days. I loved being in the school environment. I cannot wait to be teaching in my own classroom! I hope everyone has a great week. I will see you ladies on Monday!

Reflection 02/16/09

Even though I am majoring in English, I have always had trouble writing. I continue to learn better writing strategies with each paper I complete. Having a blog is a little strange to me. I have never been one to journal every day, and I still struggle with this issue now. As with writing, I am learning the benefits from writing for five minutes every night. I am not a big fan of the blogging idea yet, but I can see how helpful it is for many people. I believe that through practice and self-discipline, I will gain insight on the rewards of journaling and, possibly, blogging.

The book project is kind of fun. I could not decide what to write about, but through the help of several table members, who shall remain nameless, I have a topic. I think writing a book about coming to college as an older student will hopefully give others a look at the obstacles most non-traditional students face beyond the classroom.

Reflection 02/14/09

Oh, where do I begin? I never knew I had a learning disability until I went to marriage counseling with my husband. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the beginning of 2005. Once I was told that I suffer from the combined type of this disability, my psychologist, my husband, and I started to put the pieces together. After this, I was able to look back on my school years to see how it affected my academic and social skills.

I struggled through school with reading comprehension and writing abilities. I was a very friendly person, but I wanted to please everybody. I was eager to have people like me, so I would become annoying. My grades were okay, but I found it very hard to really focus on one thing at a time. I had a lot of energy which caused me to have problems sitting still during class. I also found it very hard to control my impulses. For instance, I would always speak out of turn, or interrupt someone, or show my frustration by snapping at someone. In 7^th and 8^th grades, I was assigned 500 word essays for talking so much in class. Once I had exhausted this punishment, I started receiving demerits. If a student got a total of 8 demerits, she was sent to ISS (In School Suspension). Luckily, I teetered between 6 and 7 demerits. When I started high school, I was able to control some of these urges, but I could not squelch them. Throughout my school years, I was constantly told that I was lazy and was never encouraged to apply for college or anything beyond high school. I worked many jobs after graduation. At every job, I learned to compensate for the lack of control I lived with. I found ways to organize things, even though no one could ever figure out the “method to my madness.” My longest job lasted four years, and these wonderful people learned to live with me. Finally, I felt accepted.

After my initial diagnosis in 2005, I went to a psychiatrist to receive medication. Let me tell you something. This gracious doctor has given me a life. He understands how my mind works, and he helps me find the right medicine and dosage that I need. If I did not have my husband and this doctor in my life, I would not be where I am today.

Because of the issues I continue to face every day in college, I am determined to provide my future students a classroom environment and teaching style for all different learners. I learn new things I can do all the time, and I want to share these skills and advice with my students. No student will leave my class feeling as if he/she did not succeed. I will not give up on my students. I know what giving up feels like, and I do not want my students to feel as if they have failed.

Class Reflection 02/02

Because I am a little older now, I cannot remember too much about elementary school. I will share what little bit I can recall, but I will also share my own children’s experiences too. In kindergarten, I remember the alphabet letter people. They were these inflatable letters, and the class learned a new one every week, maybe? I remember reading from these skinny books about a Panda Bear. I think the Panda’s name was Buffy. I do remember the smell of the books because they were new. Other than that, I can jump to seventh and eighth grades. We still had spelling books and had weekly spelling tests. This is when I found my love of spelling!

For my three children, the language learning has been different. Miranda also had the inflatable alphabet people in kindergarten, but I don’t recall anything else as far as language learning for her. My older son, Tyler, still has trouble with his spelling and language. He originally learned to spell phonetically, and he has never been corrected in school. I get very upset at the teachers who are doing him a disservice by not correcting his spelling mistakes. I worry about Tyler because he is in sixth grade, and he still has spelling problems. I really feel like his teachers are only concerned with his sentence structure, grammatical errors, and etc. When I try to patiently show Tyler his spelling mistakes and help him, he gets mad. He tells me that I should not worry about his spelling because his teachers do not worry about it. What bothers me the most is my youngest son, Kieran, can correct Tyler’s spelling. I admit that Kieran is really advanced for his age, but he shouldn’t be teaching his older brother how to spell!

I really wonder what has happened in Tyler’s education. Did I do something wrong? Did the teachers do something wrong? I question this all the time. Even though I cannot place the blame on one specific person, I am very determined to provide my students with all the help they need in learning everything I can teach them concerning language, which includes spelling.

Capable Readers

One of the biggest factors to me as a future middle school teacher is to find topics of interest. I believe that if I provide several book choices and allow the students to decide which one to read, I am encouraging reading. I want my students to find a book interesting or exciting. I want my students to relate to the protagonist in the book in some way. The teacher needs to be a model reader. She should tell her students what she has been reading to show her love of reading.

Reading in class

There are several different ways to read. Independent reading is simply reading alone. The student would need to have a copy of the text to take home and read. There would also be time in the class dedicated to reading independently. One big drawback with this method of reading can come from a student who has difficulty in this particular language arts area. An even better way for reading comes from guided reading and buddy reading. Although I do not intend to use buddy reading in middle school, I can see the benefits in elementary classrooms. The children would be reading with a peer, but they need to understand that both of them get an opportunity to read. The guided reading method reminds me of literature circles. I really like this idea and had the chance to participate in one last semester. The biggest role the teacher plays would be assuring all group members participated. Reading aloud to students is a great way to start the day. I enjoy listening to Dr. Duncan read Sahara Special in our class. There is one issue with this technique though. Because I am not reading the book, I have a hard time remembering what was read in class. After all of this explanation, I believe the shared reading method may work best in the middle school classroom. I want to encourage all students to participate in some way. Yes, I would have more control over this process, but I want to maintain my students’ attention. I can read a little, and I can choose students in random to read a little out loud. This would help strengthen a student’s reading ability, but it could also evoke other peers to help each other with any difficulties. I see this as building a stronger relationship between the students.

Five Stages of the Reading Process

The five stages of the reading process:

1. Pre-reading is the time spent choosing topics for books. An example would be for the teacher to have some idea concerning each student’s interests. At this point, the class could discuss several possible book choices and pick the one they would most likely enjoy reading.

2. Reading involves exactly this: reading. Although this can be done through several different means, I like the shared reading and reading the text out loud.

3. Responding is getting the students’ reactions on what they are reading. During this process, students are asking questions, using a journal to show they understand what they are reading, and discussing the book with others in class.

4. Exploring is going a little deeper than responding. The students can take on different roles in a literature circle, or students can study the background of the author and discuss the relationship between the author‘s life with the text.

5. Applying is the last stage in the reading process. An example would be having the students create a pamphlet of the book they just read in order to entice other students to read the book.

Aesthetic & Efferent Reading

Aesthetic reading is reading for entertainment. Efferent reading is reading to learn. I usually prefer aesthetic reading. I LOVE to read. I enjoy getting wrapped up in a book with images flowing through my mind while the story unfolds on the pages. This kind of reading helps me escape to another place in another person’s eyes. While in school, I seem to employ more efferent reading, even though I do enjoy some of the information I am assigned to read.

The 6 Language Arts

I was really unaware that there was a list of different language arts. I grew up without understanding the four original modes were listening, talking, reading, and writing. Although my teachers did focus lessons on every one of these, I was ignorant to the fact there was a list teachers needed to follow. I was surprised to see the addition of viewing and visually representing to the list. I believe that these two are just as important in teaching language arts as the other four.
Yes, I believe that viewing and visually representing are essential to the list. I struggle with a learning disability, and I know that I am a visual learner. I believe it is very important to take into account all the students in your classroom. Sure, we are condoning the technological influences on children’s lives, but this is the changing world. Our children are growing up in a time when the computer, internet, etc. are main routes for research. I also believe all children should learn the skills necessary for researching using books and the library resources that are not digital.I believe that the students would gain a greater appreciation for others hard work that originally went into locating sources before technology was introduced.

As a young student, I always had difficulty in focusing on any of these 6 language arts. I believe that if the viewing and visually representing had been implemented when I was in school, I may have retained more information. The other four language arts have always been essential for every student. But there was little concern for differentiation in school until now.